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empresskylo · 7 months

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beneath the mask ✩ chapter 10 ⬅ch.9

➠𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈; 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓; 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 ➠SIMON "GHOST" RILEY X AFAB!READER ➠CHAPTER TAGS | violence. sexual assault implications. blood. wc 5.4k ➠AUTHOR'S NOTE | hehe enjoy

𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐜𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

…uzbekistan…

you woke to arabic voices, your eyes squinting open in discomfort. your head was pounding and your stomach thrummed with a wave of nausea. you quickly remembered you had been hit with the butt of a rifle, right beneath your ribs. you leaned over in the moving vehicle and dry heaved.

“innahā mustayqiẓatun,” she’s awake .

you sat back up, the realization of what had happened hitting you. you went to wipe your mouth and found your hands were bound together with a rope. you groaned and awkwardly carried out the action with your hands linked.

laswell . you quickly looked around, not seeing laswell in the the truck with you. you were in the backseat beside a man who was speaking hurriedly to the man in front, driving. you looked out the window, the town rushing by.

“where’s laswell?” you asked, your voice hoarse. the men ignored you. “my friend. where is she?” you said with a bit more force hoping one of them would answer you.

they continued to talk as if you weren’t there. you ground your teeth together in annoyance. you rested your head against the window, the cold of the glass helping with the tension throbbing in your skull.

your body was still pumping with adrenaline and you were finding it hard to sit still. your fingers wound themselves together, your leg bouncing up and down. you hoped laswell was okay. you also hoped she was going to the same place you were… you didn’t want to be alone, as cruel as that might be. you were trapped in this truck with three men—three men who kidnapped you. you had no idea where they were taking you or what they were going to do with you. the panic hit you like a slap in the face.

you tried to breathe slowly, letting out low breaths, trying to steady your nerves. it did little to help.

would the others be coming to rescue you and laswell? surely they would. shepherd wouldn’t let them give up on you two. at least not laswell, she was far too important. and price wouldn’t stand for it.

they were coming. you prayed to god they were coming.

“lieutenant. it’s farah. it’s time.”

“rog. wheels down in one.” ghost voice was hoarse as he answered farah over the comms. “nik, convoy’s inbound. we’re on.”

“copy that,” nikolai responded. “over the hlz now.”

ghost’s heart rate continued to rise the longer you and laswell were kept hostage. he clenched the gun at his hip and patted himself down, making sure he had all he would need to get the two of you back. he also found it hard to stay still, his body flooded with adrenaline.

“good. set ‘er down and hold,” ghost said. he walked to the door of the helicopter, looking between gaz and soap. “gaz, you stay in the heli on overwatch. we’ll work our way up the line.”

“roger that. let’s thin the herd, get laswell and iaso back.”

when the helicopter landed only moments later, ghost and soap connected fists with gaz as they hopped out. on the ground, dirt whipping around them from the blades of the helicopter, a woman on a rusted bike sat waiting for the two men.

“hey, lt., sergeant,” she called out, greeting the men.

“farah. thanks for the assist,” soap replied when ghost didn’t respond, noticing how he had tensed up.

“we share a common enemy,” farah said, nodding at the men.

“and friends in need,” ghost said a bit harshly. “are you ready?”

“all set. see you down the road!” she slid up her mask and pulled get goggles over her eyes. she looked so self-assured, ready to take down men twice her size. ghost thought about how you would have liked her.

“all stations… we’re on the move!” ghost called as he and soap jogged up to the beige truck waiting for them.

the two men jumped in the bed of the truck, ghost slapping the top of the roof to let the driver know they were on board and ready to go.

the procession of three trucks and multiple motorcycles took off down the dirt road.

“all stations, we’re up—comms check…” farah’s voice rang in ghost’s ear.

“good copy,” ghost grunted.

“check,” gaz responded from 30 feet in the air, his sniper at the ready as he pointed it out the door of the helicopter.

“loud and clear,” nikolai said.

“the al-qatala convoy just passed us. we’ll be right behind them,” farah urged.

“copy. nik, use the ravine for cover. we’ve got one shot to rescue them.”

“roger that,” nik responded to ghost.

“what vehicle are they in?” gaz asked.

“al-qatala has iaso in a black suv, laswel in the similar one right in front of hers. near the front of the convoy.” farah’s voice echoed.

“we hit the escort vehicles first. then we secure laswell and iaso before aq can reach the border.” ghost commanded. “soldiers, move in!”

gaz began to fire shots at aq that were standing in the back of truck beds. ghost gripped his gun as he aimed the barrel toward the aq vehicles up ahead. he was too far back to get a good shot and growled in irritation.

ghost leaned over the side of the truck, shouting to the man driving, his window down. “get me up beside one of the aq trucks!”

the driver nodded and stepped on the gas. “what’re ya doin’?” soap asked ghost.

“gettin’ the girls back,” he said before stepping onto the top of the truck and running down the front onto the hood, immediately jumping and landing on the back of an aq truck. one of the men stood and came at ghost, but gaz was faster, shooting a bullet through his skull before he could reach him.

“thanks,” ghost said.

“don’t mention it.”

ghost’s fist came slamming down onto the other aq, shoving him off the back of the truck. he sheathed his gun momentarily, maneuvering himself over the edge of the truck, his hand clutching tightly to the metal, his other hand opening the driver’s door. the man shouted something in arabic as ghost grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped him from the truck. the man went tumbling on the pavement, his hands coming up over his head as the bikes raced around him.

ghost pushed himself into the driver’s seat with a huff. he yanked the door shut and floored it.

“jesus, lt.,” soap breathed, watching the events unfold.

ghost would have chuckled at soap’s astonishment, but all that was on his mind was getting you back unharmed.

of course ghost cared about laswell. he had worked with her for a while now, and he’d never admit it, but he cared about price too. and price and laswell were close. price had been fuming when he found out what happened on this mission—pissed at himself for not being there, as if he could have done something to stop laswell from getting taken if he hadn’t asked ghost to take his position.

but laswell wasn’t ghost’s main objective. it was you. you were who he was about to slaughter through walls of men for. it was you his heart pounded in nerves for. he felt so sick when he thought about what they might be doing to you that he almost had to lean over to retch.

and laswell—while out of practice—was a trained killer. you, on the other hand, had only started to take combat training seriously the past few weeks. the thought made ghost’s chest constrict painfully tight. if they put one hand on you…

he let out a shallow breath, turning the wheel to the truck abruptly, avoiding civilian cars while trying to move up the procession of aq trucks.

soap had an eye on ghost’s truck and saw the way he was swerving between oncoming cars to get closer to the front. soap almost regretted his conversation with ghost earlier. he was worried it had gotten through to him—that ghost was ready to risk his life, acting far too rashly, to clear his conscience.

ghost spotted the black suv farah had mentioned earlier up ahead. it was pretty far off in the distance and with aq trucks clogging the road, and oncoming traffic coming from the other direction, ghost slammed his hand on the wheel in frustration. it was going to take too long for him to get up close.

“throwing molotov!” farah’s voice rang in ghost’s ears, bringing him back to the moment. he saw the truck behind him go up in flames in his side mirror.

“heh-heh… i missed farah,” nikolai laughed.

the commotion in his ears faded to a rumble. ghost was focusing on how to get to you before it was too late, everything else was just background noise to him. he heard nikolai and gaz yelling in his ears but nothing was getting through to him.

an aq truck pulled up beside him and ghost immediately pulled his gun and began shooting. the truck stuttered backward before pulling back up and firing at him again. ghost ducked and swerved the vehicle. he slammed the side of his truck into the other, catching them off guard and using that as an opportunity to shoot back at them. before he could reload, the enemy truck exploded, turning into a ball of flames.

he heard farah laughing over the comms. jesus, she was intense, and ghost was thankful for it.

the further he drove, the farther you seemed to get from him. civilian vehicles were only getting in the way, the aq trucks swerving all over the road, preventing ghost and his other men from getting past them.

a car exploded before ghost, making him grip the wheel tightly, trying to turn out of the way. that wasn’t an aq truck…

“they’re taking down civilian vehicles! blocking the roads!”

shit.

you heard the explosions going off somewhere in the distance behind you. you turned to look out the back window and saw a large commotion, vehicles going all over the road, a procession of motorcycles with riders shooting men in trucks.

a feeling of relief swam through you— they came.

you continued to watch, unable to do anything else. you observed as a car that was rushing in the opposite direction blew up, rotating onto its back and igniting in flames.

“wait… those are just civillians,” you muttered to yourself. “hey! you’re killing innocent people!” you shouted. you couldn’t believe it. they were taking innocent lives, completely uncaring, their only objective was to block the roads.

you turned to the man beside you in astonishment, ready to yell again, when his hand came down on your face, slapping you across the cheek. your head flew in the opposite direction, your lips parting in a gasp.

“no more talking,” he said in a heavy accent.

you gulped, looking forward. you licked your lips and could taste the blood from your busted lip. the other men laughed as they looked at you in the rearview mirror, muttering something you couldn’t understand in arabic.

you were going to have to be smarter about this. you sat silently in your seat. you began to worry that your teammates wouldn’t be able to get to you in time. there were a lot of aq vehicles trailing behind you. you weren’t sure how they’d manage to get through them all.

you heard the engine of a helicopter and you turned, looking out one of the back windows again. your jaw dropped. oh my god, was that gaz? gaz was fucking hanging from a rope attached to the helicopter, upside down, continuing to shoot at enemy soldiers. you gasped when he almost swung right into a truck. your heart raced as you watched him.

a bend in the road cut off your vision and you faced forward again. you didn’t want anyone risking their life for you. as much as you wanted rescuing, you didn’t want it at the expense of others. the image of gaz swinging wildly in the air was plastered in your mind. these men were going to get themselves killed. and it was going to be your fault.

ghost felt like he was running out of options as you rapidly approached the border.

“gaz, nik—my spotters are reporting an aq roadblock ahead.” farah’s voice came in through the comms in a level-headed voice.

“affirm, i see it,” nikolai responded. “you might have to ram through.”

“crash it. kill as many as you can,” ghost echoed into his mic.

ghost gripped his steering wheel, stepping on the gas as he approached the roadblock. he spotted gaz coming up right behind him in an aq truck.

both men tore through the aq men, trudging past the trucks lined up to block them, destroying anything in their wake. ghost felt beyond destructive. he felt lethal.

“nik, i punched through,” gaz said as him and ghost got on the other side of the roadblock.

“be advised. there is a situation up the road.” nikolai’s voice sent a shiver through ghost. he was just waiting for someone to say your black suv blew up, or crashed, or they lost track of it.

“aq is deploying mines on the highway!”

“these are civillains, nik,” gaz said in anguish. “aq will burn for this.”

“i’ll bring the matches,” farah chimed in.

ghost managed to weave between the charred cars, praying he didn’t hit a mine.

further up the road, ghost swung open his door, timing it just right so when an aq motorcycle rode up right beside him, with great strength, he shoved the man off and hopped on. he watched as the truck ran off the road and crashed into a rocky hill.

ghost revved the bike’s engine, gaining far more speed than he ever could in the pilfered truck.

he heard gaz and nik conversing, then soap yelling over the comms for gaz to get on board the truck bed he was in.

ghost floored it down the road, watching as the procession ahead of him split off in two different directions.

“shit! they’re splitting them up!” soap called out.

“who do we follow?” gaz asked as he picked up the grenade launcher.

ghost grit his teeth. “soap, gaz—follow laswell. i’ll follow iaso.”

“you sure, lt.?”

“we don’t have time to argue about this, soap. just go.”

soap and gaz looked at one another before nodding. the convoy split up. soap and gaz followed laswell and ghost went off the road, following the black suv you were trapped inside. the car was going too fast for the others to keep up. ghost was glad he got on a bike, it was the only way he’d be able to get up to you in time.

ghost’s own words rang in his head, the ones he had said to you in the bar. the words that hurt you. the words he had regretted ever since they left his tongue. you were going to die thinking he hated you. thinking he used you.

ghost clenched the handlebars to the bike tighter, narrowing his eyes as he hurried behind you. he was going to get you back even if it killed him.

you knew you were going off the road the second the vehicle began to bump up and down. you tried to clutch onto something to keep from falling off the seat, but it was difficult with your hands tied.

the men in the suv with you were yelling at one another. then the stout man beside you leaned out his window and began shooting.

you turned to look out the window. your stomach dropped. the convoy was gone. you only saw one motorcycle trailing behind you. the others must have split off. this was their plan. to split you and laswell up, thus splitting up the convoy of rescuers.

you tried not to let the fact that only one person was trailing you to hurt your feelings. now was not the time to be sensitive. but you couldn’t help but wonder if laswell had the rest of your team following her. it made sense, though. she was laswell… and you were just…iaso.

you yelped as the vehicle took an abrupt turn, making you slam into the man beside you. he shoved you off and rushed to reload his gun. you looked behind you in horror, realizing it was ghost on the bike, finally able to make out his mask as he edged closer.

the man beside you went to lean back out the window, ready to send bullets in ghost’s direction. you acted before you could think, using your tied hands to claw at his back. you gripped onto the cotton material of his shirt and yanked him backward. he was so caught off guard from the sudden attack that he stumbled and crashed back on the seat beside you.

he said something in arabic then hit you across the face again. your head flew back and hit the edge of the door. you groaned in pain. you squeezed your eyes shut, your head throbbing.

they took a sharp turn and you were jostled back, opening your eyes in response. the man in the passenger’s seat leaned out his window now and began to shoot his pistol. you heard him make a celebratory noise and you almost broke your neck turning around to look for ghost.

ghost’s bike skidded out from under him, sending him crashing down. the bullet had blown a hole in his tire.

“no,” you said softly. your lips trembling. he was your last hope.

you watched full of dread as the truck carried you away. ghost sat up and brushed himself off. he looked out after you, standing in the middle of nowhere, at a loss of what to do.

tears began to slide down your cheek.

“i lost her,” ghost said over the comms in a newfound sense of defeat. soap had never heard his voice sound quite like that.

there was a moment of silence before ghost heard ruffling and then soap’s voice.

“come again, lt.?”

ghost was walking back from where he came, following the tracks in the dirt. “iaso. she got away.”

again there was radio silence.

“im on my way,” ghost heard farah say.

“farah—”

she cut ghost off. “i started trailing you as soon as we picked off the remaining aq trucks. we’re almost to you. stay put,” she demanded.

it wasn’t long before farah was riding up with two other men on bikes. “what happened?” farah asked, her bike skidding to a halt.

“fuckers blew my tire. they still got iaso.”

farah looked at one of her soldiers and nodded. he hopped off his bike and held it up for ghost. farah laughed as ghost looked confused. “get on. we’re goin’ to get her.”

“laswell?” ghost asked, wanting to know if she had at least made it out okay.

“soap and gaz got her. she’s safe.”

ghost took in a breath before accepting the bike and getting on. “let's go get her back, lieutenant.”

with a new rush of energy, ghost took off, following the tracks of the suv alongside farah and another soldier.

“she couldn’t have gotten far!” farah called out.

when the suv came to a stop, you were quickly escorted out of the vehicle. you stumbled, the men giving you no time to right yourself before they pushed you into a wooden building. the men roughly jostled you through the door, your eyes attempting to adjust to the dark.

you struggled to make out where you were before the man whose hands were holding your arm shoved you into a small room. you fell to the floor at the sudden force.

the man spat something at you that you didn’t understand then he slammed the door shut behind him. you were left alone in the room and you tried to sit up. your arm was already bruising from where he held you, and you could feel blood dripping down the side of your face.

you scooted yourself into the corner and hugged your knees to your chest, your wrists beginning to burn as they constantly rubbed against the binding rope.

you tried to hold back the wave of tears but you failed. you hoped they made it to kate. you hoped she wasn’t going through the same thing you were right now. though, if she was, she was no doubt coping much better than you.

you looked around the room, trying to clear your vision from tears by blinking repeatedly. the room was mostly empty except for a chair and a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. if you didn’t know any better, you’d think this was an interrogation room.

the notion plummeted inside your stomach, making you bury your face in your knees. you weren’t going to survive this. you were weak. you were suddenly pissed at price for letting you join his team. you weren’t cut out for this shit. you were a medic, not a damn fighter.

minutes ticked by and your tears finally dried up. the longer you sat, the more fear was instilled inside you. you regretted cursing price out already, knowing it wasn’t his fault any of this happened to you. usually, you were good under extreme pressure, but that was only when it came to medical stuff. not when you were being kidnapped.

god, your head was killing you. you hoped you didn’t look as bad as you felt.

the metal door scrapped along the cement floor as it opened. you looked up in horror as a man stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. he grinned when he looked at you huddled in the corner.

“you don’t appear to be a soldier,” he said, his accent dripping over every word.

“i’m a medic,” you said, your voice only slightly wavering.

the man made a humming sound as he dug around in his pocket. “well, then i’m sorry to have to do this to you, but really, we have no choice.” he gestured around him. the sardonic smile on his face said he didn’t mean any of the words he was saying. he likely couldn’t wait to torture you for information, even when you’d be unable to offer anything useful. he just needed an excuse to hurt someone.

he nudged his head towards the metal chair. “don’t make me have to help you up,” he grunted.

you quickly got to your feet and sat in the chair, your body shaking with nerves. the man grinned as he dragged the knife he drew from his pocket along your arm. “been awhile since i’ve done this to a woman. i’d be lying if i said i haven’t missed it.”

you swallowed painfully as he trailed the knife up to your neck. “you’re sick,” you spat at him.

he chuckled. “indeed.”

you knew then that nothing you said was going to help you. this man didn’t care if you knew anything or not. he just wanted to hurt you. you didn’t want to cry, but the tears began to fall again anyway. you tried so hard to keep them in. you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

he licked his lips as he watched the tears glide down your cheeks. “pretty thing like you shouldn’t cry,” he said menacingly.

he took his knife and traced it back down your arm until it reached your hand. “hmm. now, tell me. which finger do you like the least?”

you strangled a sob. he didn’t even interrogate you yet. he was just jumping right to the torture part “please,” you barely managed to get out.

“oh, i like the way you beg,” he remarked.

you grit your teeth and pulled your hands away from him. “nowhere to go,” he mocked, using his knife to gesture around the small confines of the room.

“im curious. where have you been getting your intel on hassan’s location?”

you shook your head, pulling back as far away as you could from him.

he tisked. then his hand grabbed your jaw aggressively, making you whimper. his knife came up and slid down the side of your face, this time he applied pressure and you squeezed your eyes shut. the blood wept out from the trail he left and you could feel it slide down your face and drip onto your clothes.

the man shoved your face back as he let go, flipping his knife in his hand as he watched you with fire in his eyes. “now, i’m going to give you another chance to answer. and trust me, you won’t like what happens if you don’t tell me what i want to hear.”

you opened your mouth but nothing came out. that type of information was classified, so even if you wanted to tell him—which you wouldn’t—you didn’t know. medics didn’t get the rundown of information like that.

when he realized you weren’t going to speak, he looked you up and down. “hm. you’re not going to be of much help, huh?” he prowled you like a cat would its prey. “how about i get some use out of you before i bloody you up too much, then?”

you didn’t like the sound of that. his knife hooked under the straps of your tactical vest and in a swift movement, he cut it away. the vest fell from you and he tossed it aside to the floor. then his knife was back along the collar of your shirt. he grinned as he ripped through your longsleeved shirt, straight down the center. you silently cried as you felt the air rush to your now exposed skin. the shirt was split down the middle exposing your tank top.

“please don't,” you pleaded.

you felt his fingers along the neckline of your tanktop now, his knife slipping under the fabric. you closed your eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

just as he was about to slide his knife down your shirt, you heard yelling and the sound of guns going off in the distance. the man stopped all movement and turned around. he clearly wasn’t expecting any sort of interruption. without another word, he exited the room to investigate, leaving you alone again.

you caught your breath, breathing in and out exceptionally fast. you let out a loose breath and looked up at the ceiling, willing your tears to slow. the loss of his grimy fingers on your skin relieved you momentarily.

you tried to calm yourself as you heard more shouting and the firing of weapons. your legs were shaking as you sat there. you tried to use your hands to pull your shredded shirt back over yourself but it was no use. you swore in exhaustion, sinking back into the chair.

after several minutes, it was finally silent outside the room. your body set in more unease with the silence.

the door handle shook and the awful sound of it scraping the ground made you wince as the door opened. your eyes immediately went to the door and you kept them locked on the entrance, feeling them go wide as a large figure took up the space.

you almost choked on your breathing, a strangled sob leaving you as you locked eyes with ghost. you began to cry in relief. in shock. in horror of what almost happened—you were convinced it was really all over for you. that this was it.

as your body shook, ghost rushed up to you. his voice was hoarse as he said your name, trying to gain your attention. you looked up at him through hot tears and gave a halfhearted smile, your lips trembling. you had held yourself together as best as you could, but now with ghost in front of you, everything came tumbling down. his mask was covered in blood and he seemed to be out of breath.

he tilted his head to the side as he looked at you, his heart squeezing painfully at the sight. your face was bloody and your shirt had been ripped apart. a newfound sense of anger coursed through ghost.

he pulled out his knife and you flinched, hitting the back of the chair as you created space between the two of you. he took notice but didn’t stop his movements. maybe in any other scenario, he would have tried to calm you down, letting you know he was only using the knife to free you. but just the fact that you shied away from his knife sent him into a fit of rage. he saw that the cut on your face was a long, straight line. he knew then why you were suddenly acting like his knife was the scariest thing in the world. he wished he hadn’t already killed every fucking bastard in there. he would give anything to string up whoever did this to you and give them a slow death.

he slid the knife between your hands and cut away the rope, setting your hands free.

you immediately grasped your wrists which had turned red and rubbed raw from the rope. ghost looked down at you, still unable to say anything. your eyes met his again and you took a moment to take him in before you sprang to your feet and wrapped your arms around him. he didn’t hesitate as he hugged you back.

he felt you sobbing into his neck and his arms tightened around your waist. “you’re okay,” he cooed softly. “you’re safe now. i’ve got you.” his heart pounded harshly in his chest and you could feel it against you.

one of his hands slid up your back and got lost in your hair as he cradled you to his body, your frontside flesh with his, wanting you as close as he could get you. he shut his eyes for a brief moment, letting reality hit him full force. he got to you in time. you were okay. you were going to be okay.

he sank to his knees in sharp relief with you still wrapped tightly in his grasp. he let you take what you needed from him, his presence bringing you nothing but a sense of safety. he let out a long breath of relief.

you pulled back slightly, ashamed to look at him. “i-i’m sorry,” you muttered, your hand loosening around him.

sensing your doubt, he clung to you tighter. “stop,” he said in a voice so soft you felt your heart pinch. “this isn’t your fault.”

you felt like he was reading your thoughts better than you were. his few words hit you harder than he could ever know. you sank back into him, letting yourself go limp as he held you.

when you both finally separated, ghost helped you to your feet. he appraised your figure and you saw the anger behind his eyes. he moved too quickly for you to take in what he was doing. he slid his vest off and then removed his longsleeved shirt, leaving him in his black undershirt. you watched in astonishment as he pulled the shirt over your head. you slid your arms in as ghost picked up his vest and put it back on.

your eyes traced his tattooed arm and his scent immediately filled your nose. his shirt was far too big for you, hanging down over your thighs, but you were thankful. you knew it wasn’t your fault, but you were still embarrassed to have your shirt ripped and exposed like that. you didn’t want everyone else to know what happened to you. you almost felt ashamed.

ghost clenched his fist before reaching up and running a finger over the bruise above your eyebrow. “i’m sorry i couldn't get to you sooner,” he said distractedly.

you looked up at him through your eyelashes. “ghost, don’t. it’s not your fault either.”

he wished you had called him simon.

before he could think more on the topic and read into your every word, he scooped you up and held you in his arms bridal style. you squealed but settled into his arms quickly. his hand rubbed soft patterns on your back as he carried you out of the building. your arms hooked around his neck, your body shaking less violently, but still shaking nonetheless.

ghost held you closer and you felt like everything was going to be okay. you rested your head on his chest and let the tears fade out slowly.

chapter 11 ➡

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 2 months

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Supersons +1 propmt fill Part3 Tr3s

The sprinklers activated in an instant and covered the centre in a deluge of water. Whatever scientists remained scrambled to recover what remained of their creations before the water could irrevocably damage them. In a hidden corner, one Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent made knowing glances to each other, a mutual agreement reached in seconds after decades of friendship. With the help of a crowbar, the men quickly pry open one of the exit doors, making way for panicked civilians to exit the premises, 'Brucie' giving comfort to those distressed by the recent events. It wasn't long before they had to make themselves scarce. They had their sons to rescue, there was no time!

As Bruce and Clark snuck out into the empty hallway, having been quickly evacuated by a Gothamite's natural self-preservation instinct and discipline from years of attacks. They nodded, and went their seperate ways. Clark to go change into his Superman outfit, and Bruce to calm the inevitable deluge of reporters before changing into his own costume.

Cameras flashed over the front entrance to the event, blinding the last few stragglers to leave, and Bruce, standing tall against the crashing sea.

"Mr Wayne! What can you tell us about the new villain that Joker has teamed up with?"

"Mr Wayne, how does Wayne Industries intent to secure future events from attacks on this scale?"

"Where is Damian Wayne? Sir how can Wayne Industries secure the future of Gotham if you cannot protect your own children?"

"Mr Wayne is it true that you allowed Jack Fenton to attend the event despite knowing he was a quack?"

And on and on and on. Bruce never intended to give these people what they wanted. He had children to save, and investigations to conduct. Before he could excuse himself, however, a roaring boom echoed down the street like summer thunder. Reporters screamed as they trampled over each other to escape the path of a silver behemoth charging down the road. Thick metal plates lined its exterior. A large satellite dish adorned its top, and jutting out from the sides were massive guns. The van sported too many OSHA violations to be anything less than a tank on four wheels than any civilian vehicle. Batman will have to crack down on whatever corrupt whitecollar criminals allowed this monstrosity on the roads.

The van charged right up to where Bruce was standing on the pavement, before coming to a terrifyingly rapid halt, so sudden that the entire vehicle jerked forward from its momentum. It would have been cartoonish if it hadn't stopped cleanly right in front of him. The front door slammed open, and a pair of black-gloved hands grabbed Bruce by the shoulder. In public surrounded by cameras, Bruce was helpless but to comply.

"BRUCIE WAYNE! I'VE BEEN LOOKING ALL OVER FOR YOU!"

Bruce scanned the interior of the van in an instant, clocking in the undignified Clark Kent clinging to his seat like a child to their parents leg, tie messed up and suit creased. His classes were crooked on his face. "He just scooped me up like I was paper mache, Bruce!" The man's voice was shaking.

"Strap in Brucie, because the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle cares for no trivial matters like traffic laws, or even physics laws!"

What kind of branding was this? "The Fenton Family wha-" Jack slammed the gas. The GAV rocketed into max gear in an instant. The force threw the poor man off his feet. Bruce went hurtling into the backside of the GAV and crashed with a bang. The G-forces kept him glued to the wall like a black-suited starfish, at least until Clark extended an arm to peel him off.

"I'm starting to think you might be right about him being a supervillain." Clark whispered.

Bruce grimly nodded.

"Alright so now that we're all together, here's the plan folks!" Jack said, tone all too cheerful for the chaos he was creating on the road. Innocent cars swerved out of the way of the advancing war machine. Pedestrians clung to lampposts and fences as gale force winds blasted them from its wake. "Let's start with the bad news: Our kids have been spirited away by suffering spooks! The good news: The Fenton Radar works!" Jack tapped on a screen on the van's console, showing two beeping dots on a radar map.

"BUILDING!" Clark yelled. They were rocketing right into a townhouse.

Jack yanked the wheel to the left. The GAV turned 90 degrees in about half a second, turning both passengers into ragdolls thrown across the side. On the outside, a subtle Superman-shaped dent was visible. "Thanks for that, Clarkie! Now I'm sure you guys aren't as experienced as me and my lovely wife Maddie are in hunting ghosts, but don't worry! I can give you a crash course."

"Please don't say crash course." Clark quivered.

"Could you maybe slow down?!" Bruce yelled over the roaring engines.

"No can do, Brucie! Any slower and the GHOSTS will leave the Fenton Radar's range, and then we'll never get our kids back!"

"I think I'm going to be sick." So Kryptonians can get nausea from high-speed vehicles, interesting. He'll have to update his file.

"The Joker and his associates entered your portal and set it to blow, how can we even get the kids back if they're on the other side!"

Jack turned around with a smile. "That's what the Fenton PortaPortal version 2 is for! Never leave home without a spare, my grandpa Fenton always said!"

"Dr Fenton, that bridge was destroyed in a gang fight!" Bruce shouted. Construction workers were already scattering, but a thick concrete barrier stood in their way.

"No need to worry, Fenton engineering can handle a little hole here or there!"

"The entire bridge was destroyed, we're going to fall off!"

"I love your sense of humour Brucie, but even if we did it wouldn't matter!"

"I really think it does, Dr Fenton!" Clark gripped the bottom of the nearby seat hard enuogh to dent.

"Nonsense, watch this!" Jack pushed the gas even further, as if that was even possible. The GAV reduced the concrete barrior to smithereens. "Go go Fenton Famliy Ghost Assault Vehicle: Aerial Mode!" The mad scientist's shouted in glee. He pulled another lever, activating a pair of wings from the sides.

Clark would deny screaming like a girl to the end of his days.

~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, in the Zone...

Danny shifted nervously in his position, atop the swarm of Lydia's bats, and flanked by the freaking Joker of all people on one side and Freaking Freakshow on the other. What did he do to deserve this?

If It was just the Joker and Freakshow, he would just happily transform and kick the snot out of these clowns, but sadly he's not alone.

Also tied up with rope both human and ghostly were one Damian Wayne and Jon Kent, the former of which looked none too pleased about the current situation. While Damian spat vitriol upon the Joker and his "D-list half-rate assisstant," with man himself largely ignoring his words to fawn over the chaos of the Realms, Danny contemplated his options. Good news: Freakshow hadn't blown his secret yet, which was cold comfort for the moment, seeing as if he had, he'd just be able to punch these suckers and be done with it, but nooo. Maybe he could overshadow the other boys and hypnotise them into forgetting? Was that a thing that can be done? Would've been convenient, and because of that, Danny suspected it's wishful thinking. If it worked, great, if it didn't work, well Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne have ties to the Justice League, who have ties to the government, who hire the GiW, so there's a non-zero percent chance such a stunt would end up with him on a dissection table.

Which means he's left playing the waiting game, spectating the Joker jumping up and down like a fangirl over all the green, and purple, and fighting, and death. First day in Gotham, guys.

"Psst." Jon whispered to him.

Danny said nothing, but leaned a little on Jon's side.

"Don't worry, we're gonna be ok, I'm sure the J-J-Justice League will be here. Just sit t-t-tight, ok?"

Wow, that was really touching that he was trying to comfort Danny, but the ghostly part of him didn't even need to feel Jon's shaking, or hear his stutter to know the kid was absolutely terrified. Now that he thought about it, it really should be him doing the comforting.

"Eh I wouldn't hedge my bets on it." Causing the other boy to squeak in fear. Curse you, snark instinct. Why can't you be heroic and reassuring instead.

"Neither would I, boy." Freakshow said, almost like he was rubbing in just how much danger his secret was in.

"You will unhand us, or you will know the meaning of pain in every sense of the world. This I tell you. I will feed you to my chickens. I will cut up your flesh and grind it into paste and then fertilise my vegetable garden with it. You will regret crossing me."

Jon let out the faintest whisper, something Danny would've never heard if he wasn't a ghost, and a master of quiet sounds. "Really selling the normal kid act here, Damian."

"On the contrary, lovely chlidren, I believe it is you who will soon become ghosts. NEYEHEHEYEHEH" Oh god here comes the gratuitous laughter. "I can't believe such a t~~tttttTANTALISING opportunity has been out there for me this whole time! AHAHAHAHAAH. And for you, my little children, to have come to this wonderful little science expo alongside your dear old daddies only to become part of the exhibit?" The Joker cracked into laughter, slapping his knees and collapsing in fitful giggles.

Each of the free boys gulped, each of them considering how to save the apparent civilian(s) among them without exposing themselves...

@impyssadobsessions

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dannyphantom-zero · 23 days

Text

Doctor Danny Chapter 9

The jet was surprisingly efficient. The landed on a private airfield and found a taxi into the town.

"So where exactly are we going?"

"Danny's childhood home"

Jason raised an eyebrow, "we getting his parents?"

Sam crisply should her head no.

"They don't know about Danny's condition, and it'll stay that way if I can help it"

Sam made the cab let them out a street before the house.

"I've got to make sure they aren't here" Sam said as she stealthily slunk around the house, peaking in the windows.

Jason admired the strange architecture of the house. What were these people? Supervillains? Mad scientists?

The Fenton Assault Vehicle was nowhere in sight. Always a good sign.

Sam forced a window open from the outside.

"Breaking in, nice." Jason commented.

She rolled her eyes and climbed through the window. Jason followed her despite his remark.

Sam noticed that the house hadn't changed much at all.

She made her way to Danny's old room.

Jason smirked at the mess. Typical teenage mess.

Sam pulled out a math textbook and flipped a few pages. A worn looking paper fell out. She dropped the book and grabbed the paper.

"This is going to be our map" Sam said handing it to him.

Jason unfolded it and scrunched his face in confusion. It didn't look like any map he had seen before.

Sam almost felt nostalgic, her nostalgia turned to anxiety as she reached the lab door.

"What is it?" Jason asked.

Sam opened the door, "this is where Danny had the accident" she said as she took carefully steps down the stairs.

Jason's eyes took a calculating sweep over the inventory of this lab. Almost every surface was taken up in space by some weird looking gun or belt or fishing rod?

Sam walked over to a large medal door.

"What's that?"

Sams expression seemed tense.

"It's, the ghost zone. Officially called the infinite realms"

She pressed a button and the mechanical doors opened up to reveal a bright swirling green vertical pit.

"We have to go in there"

Jason felt a cold sweat taking over.

"You sure this is safe?" Jason asked keeping a careful distance away from it.

"I've been in there before and I'm still alive. The portal itself is harmless. What it contains is not."

Sam smacked a large mechanical space rocket looking thing.

"Get in"

Jason wanted to dismantle the crazy portal and bomb this house but Danny needed help, so he got in.

The machine started up and lifted off the ground. Sam shifted a stick and it went forward.

Jason looked out the window in morbid curiosity.

All around were floating doors.

"What are those?"

"Doors to other dimensions, times zones, they could be spacial anomalies or fields of flowers." Sam responded keeping her eyes on the path ahead of them.

"This map is so weird, but I think it's starting to make sense now" Jason said. Sam glanced at it.

"Your holding it upside down"

Jason turned it the correct way.

"Ah now is see. This must be the evil castle and that must be the pit that swallows up anything that goes near it" he said pointing to a circle with a swirl in it.

"Basically yeah"

Suddenly the temperature dropped leaving Jason shivering.

"Welcome to the Far Frozen Jason" Sam said as they touched down in a snowy patch.

"Am I going to end up frozen?" He asked his teeth chattering.

"Don't be a baby" Sam said rolling her eyes. She tossed Jason a spare coat that was a little tight on him and they made their way to a nearby cave.

"FROSTBITE!" Sam yelled as they walked in. Jason tried not to stare at talk the yeti people. The cave turned out to be giant with tons of systems where he guessed the yeti people lived.

"Is that you Lady Sam?" A heavy voice asked.

"Yeah, it's me. Phantom needs your help"

A large yeti with a cloth sash made his way towards them.

"The great one is in trouble?"

Jason shot a look a Sam when he heard the nickname only to be ignored.

"He was poisoned with blood blossoms, I think it was a diluted version though"

"Ah, blood blossoms. And your friend here? He seems to be in need of some assistance as well"

"What Jason?" Sam looked at him suspiciously.

"Step forward of you please"

Jason followed his command. He felt a sudden cold radiat throughout his chest spreading through his upper forearms and entering his veins.

"This should naturally filter out your contamination"

Jason had to admit he felt clear. The heaviness on his chest was gone and he didn't feel particularly pissed off either.

"Thank you" he breathed out.

"As for the great one, you need to give him this"

Frostbite took a small bottle from the other yeti. Inside was a cosmic looking liquid.

"Make sure he gets this. His core might be in danger as well. He will need time to recover. Send my wishes of health to the great one please Lady Sam"

"I will" she nodded taking the bottle.

Once they were back in the Fenton shuttle Sam soared Jason a glance.

"So what's up with you?" Sam asked.

Jason tapped the window, "I died and was revived with a toxic liquid that a cult famously calls the Lazarus Pits"

" you and Danny have that in common"

"What?" Jason asked alarmed.

She laughed, "sorry, I meant dying and coming back. Danny changed because of the accident. His ghost half, the dead side, is what is ironically keeping him alive"

Jason relaxed a bit.

"Yeah, he told me he was half ghost"

"He did! Danny has always been way too trusting. Not that I don't think you can be trusted, it's just, I worry about Danny you know?"

Jason thought about how soft Danny seemed to be, an image of him shoving Jason out his window played in his head.

"I know exactly what you mean"

The shuttle went back though the portal and they stepped out. Sam closed the portal and put a passcode so the Fenton's couldn't open it.

Suddenly the loud booming voice of Jack Fenton could be heard throughout the house.

"Shit" Sam whispered.

"I know Jack, we were so close this time" Maddie said as they walked down the steps in their lab.

"We'll get em next time, no ghost is any match for Jack Fenton!"

Hanging very close to the ceiling from a grappling hook, were Sam and Jason.

Jason let them down slowly and released the grappling hook and the two made a break for the stairs. The Fenton doctors stayed oblivious to the break in.

Sam loud out a loud 'whoop' after they successfully escaped the Fenton household.

"Don't tell bats we broke in to someone's house" Jason said.

"What about the portal?"

Jason tilted his head, "yeah that's going to need explaining"

Sam smiled, "you know Danny Is technically king of that so, it could be like diplomatic. Maybe the JL will leave him alone"

Jason shook his head, "Bats is another breed. Trust me. If he wants to know something he's gonna find out what it is."

Sam sighed, "yeah he seems like the type"

The jet was ready for them when they finally managed to get back to it.

"I hope Tucker was able to help"

"Tuckers Danny's

other friend right?"

"Yeah, he's the tech support of our group."

The corner of Jason's mouth twitched up.

"I have someone like that, we call her Babs"

The jet landed back in Gotham and they made their way back to Danny.

"Tucker!" Sam exclaimed as she ran in and hugged him.

"Hey Sam!"

She pulled away and held up the bottle.

"This is it, Frostbite said this would work"

"Frostbite?" Superman asked confused.

"He helped Danny before when his powers almost froze him alive" Tucker explained.

"Wow, poor guy" Flash said, "say what's that stuff made out of?"

Sam shrugged, "no clue".

She put the liquid in a clean IV bag and hook it up.

Danny face twitched and scrunched up before relaxing again.

"Now we wait. His core is still recovering from his fight. He hasn't worsened at all has he?" Sam asked.

"No, all his readings are consistent to his normal levels. I noticed some internal burning, I hope that's resolved by your medicine " Superman said.

"Me too" Sam said patting Danny's hand.

"Is Vlad in prison?" Tucker asked with venom in his tone.

"No, he's not in prison" Bruce answered.

"Tch, figures. I hate rich people!"

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"You don't count Sam, you don't live on your parents money"

Sam thought about for a second, "yeah but not all rich people suck. Just most of them"

Jason started cracking up.

Bruce glanced at Jason. When was the last time he had seen Jason smile?

"Oh yeah, status report on the pits. I'm slowly being healed by cold magic stuff"

Sam slapped her forehead and groaned.

"We have to explain the infinite realms"

Sam took some time explaining the ghost zone and how it worked. Luckily Tucker had already shown them ALL of Danny's enemies. All Sam had to do was explain how the ghost zone was the "flip side of our world".

"The observants are like the kings council, they kind of have more authority than the king. Its around the same. Then there's clockwork. Hes a ghost who can interact with timelines"

"They sound powerful"

"They are, luckily they're more or less on our side, the non-evil side. Since they're dead they can't really become evil either. They aren't swayed by humanity"

Bruce nodded. He couldn't make a contingency plan against the Lord of time. That's like saying you know how to kill God.

"Only one time did he mess with time and it was for Danny. Danny has that kind of sway. It makes you want to do whatever you can for him"

"That's impressive"

"Hes incredible" Jason said sitting down.

"Yeah, he is" Sam smiled.

Danny's condition stabled enough to move him to the manor. They did so in citizen form. It would look suspicious if a bunch of heroes showed up at Wayne Manor.

Jason sat by Danny's bed. It was decided Sam and Tucker would stay at the manor until Danny woke up.

Which might be a while. Sure the medicine was working but Danny's core needed time to recover.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dc universe #batman #dpxdc #redhood #fanfiction #jason todd #phandom #tucker foley #sam manson #superman #clark kent #batfam #bruce wayne #gotham

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crystalclearmist · 1 month

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Just finished rereading Danny Phantom : "A glitch in time" and I'm absolutely vibrating in my seat about the new lore

Spoilers under the cut:

1. Vlad has continued his cloning experiments, even after Dani and her melted brothers :

This is also the only reason Dan Phantom is able to get a stable body at the end of the book.

Also, he designed almost functional clones with high science but really shitty technology skills. If he had help he probably would have succeeded ages ago (see point 5)

2. The staff that Clockwork always uses? Really f*ing important. It would be a tragedy if something happened to it

3. Ghosts are manifestations of human emotions

4. Tucker had a two day stint as the mayor of Amity Park and lost the job because he accidentally dropped a baby. He was also listed as married to Ember. Do with that as you will

5. When Tucker is in class he is so bored he keeps designing A - grade tech :

6. The Fentons RV, the Ghost Assault Vehicle, has 3 funny little buttons (big ghost, bigger ghost and unwanted guest)

It also has cup holders

7. Amity Park has its own version of Instagram called "Spectergram" and it has a livestreaming option

#Git #Dp #danny phantom #Git spoiler #a glitch in time #Agit #Agit spoiler #A glitch in time spoiler #Spoiler #Spoilers #Danny Phantom : a glitch in time

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wastefulreverie · 2 years

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“We probably should have expected this. In retrospect, I mean.”

Danny shot her a confused look and Jazz shrugged.

“Dad’s driving was notoriously known for being the worst in Amity Park. I mean, he pulled the Ghost Assault Vehicle in front of an eighteen wheeler.”

“Impenetrable to ghosts but not to big rigs.” He paused. “I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here, Jazz.”

“I’m grieving. I’m sorry if my focus is shot.” She pulled on the collar of her dress—a plain black dress a size too small she’d borrowed from Sam. “You have to admit though, we’re the more sane ones here.”

Danny crossed his arms. “You think?”

Across the room, Mom—also still dressed for the funeral earlier that morning—brought the Fenton Thermos down from above her head and aimed. The ghost of a broad-shouldered man in a hooded blue and white HAZMAT suit stumbled to the side. His feet slipped into a tail and Danny winced when he hit the floor. Hard.

“We should probably be stopping this,” she pointed out.

“And what are we going to tell her? ‘Hey Mom, don’t worry! Dad won’t turn evil. He’s only the second ghost in the family now.’” He deadpanned. “Yeah, I’m sure she’ll buy that.”

“What are we supposed to do then? Let her decimate him?”

“Eh, let her catch him and we’ll set him free once she’s distracted.” He turned and headed for the stairs out of the lab. “I for one, in the meantime, will be screaming into my pillow.”

She groaned.

Funerals were the worst.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Jazz Fenton #Jack Fenton #Danny Phantom fanfiction #Fanfiction #Fic #Phicc #Phic #wrwritings

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lance-thunder-reporting-live · 9 months

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Good morning Amity Park, I'm your ghostly weatherman, Lance Thunder. Today's Thursday, August 10, and there’s a 20% chance of rain. Highs are in the mid eighties and lows are in the low sixties.

Booty McTooty has continued his favourite pastime of appearing in front of people, Announcing his name, and leaving. But today he has also started petitioning for change in Amity Park.

He has gathered up a large group of about 200 people so far and together they have been protesting several issues such as weak structural integrity not being fixed in commonly targeted buildings, the lack of ghost shields around commonly targeted buildings, weak restrictions on when the Fenton ghost assault vehicle is permitted to be used, and many more.

Mayor Masters has not yet made a response to the demands to fix these issues.

The Fentons will be not be driving today so the roads are safe.

#danny phantom #lance thunder #unreality #daily report #08/10/06

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jodjuya · 1 month

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I'm officially a hater. Every Halo game since the very first one is full of bullshit.

My many problems with Halo 4, as I experience them:

FOUR VIDEO GAMES IN A SERIES! FOUR DIFFERENT CONTROLLER MAPPINGS!!! MICROSOFT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU???

What is the compass needle even pointing to on 117's assault rifle? we're adrift in open space...

WHY ARE THERE MOTHERFUCKING QUICK TIME EVENTS IN THIS GAME? FUCK YOU!

"these Covenant seem more fanatical than the ones we've fought before" - how the fuck can you tell??

Why did they give Cortana baby-face and big tits?? Pick a direction, Microsoft!! She can be prepubescent or postpubescent but not both of them simultaneously!

Why am I supposed to feel any sort of emotional attachment to Cortana anyway? She's just a Microsoft Clippy with blue boobs stuck on 🙄

"I'm the only AI generated from a clone" I'm vibrating with rage at how goddamn stupid that is.

I THINK YOU LITERALLY HAVE MORE PRESSING PROBLEMS THAN RETURNING TO HALSEY TO FACTORY-RESET YOUR AI WAIFU, MASTER CHIEF! YOU ARE EVADING HOSTILE ALIEN FORCES ON A RANDOM PLANET GOD KNOWS WHERE! JUST GET A NEW AI WAIFU WHEN YOU GET HOME! FUCK

"[Unknown alien transmission]'s behaviour is odd!" - how the fuck do you know that Cortana??? This is your first time encountering this transmission, how do you know it's not supposed to be like that?

Maybe the reason all these aliens are so hostile to you, Master Chief, is because the very first guy you saw you punched in the jaw and threw down an elevator shaft! Would it kill you to just try saying "hello" first?

Lmfao @ Cortana calling out the Chief for the exact same thing literally seconds later

"Requiem! At least we know where we are now!" - my guy you have no fucking idea where you are

WHY THE FUCK DOES HALO HAVE CINEMATIC 3RD-PERSON MELEE ATTACKS NOW?! JUST CLOBBER THE FUCKING GUY AND MOVE ON!

This is something I really disliked in Halo 3 too, but those invisible barriers that hard block you from taking vehicles indoors, even if you do manage to scrape them past the non-invisible barriers. Let me drive a Ghost indoors!

Why can't they maintain my weapon loadout on either side of a cutscene? Halo 3 handled this really well.

But here in Halo 4 I take my lovely SAW and my lovely Fuel-Rod Cannon into a cutscene and come back out of it with an assault rifle and pistol. 😒😒😒

• Seriously, why does Cortana have the face of a nine year old child and the body of a twenty-nine year old woman?! Am I taking fucking crazy pills here??

I can forgive video game developers being horny, but not when it's this gratuitously bullshit

(and the voice of a 59 year old woman, going by the game's opening cutscene of Dr Eugenics' interrogation lmao)

The new forerunner enemies are cool enough, but it really feels like they copied Borderlands' homework with their design.

Why is Cortana so blithely confident with all her info-dumping about these random alien creatures she's never seen before in her damn life? And why is master chief taking anything she says seriously when he knows she's going through AI-Alzheimer's???

The Didact is bullshit. Who the fuck is this guy? why does he call himself a "Forerunner" when that's 'our' word for them? and how does he indentify us as "human"? Also why's he so mad at us for freeing him? This is all so very stupid.

Wow. ANOTHER escape sequence involving driving fast through some exploding superstructure? Come on, Microsoft, it's all very well and good to rest on your laurels but this is just masturbating with them... I swear to you on my mother's life that having an original idea isn't nearly as painful as you seem to think it might be...

Even more being stripped of my good weapons and reset back to basic bitch assault rifle + handgun

"the greatest enemy ever faced by the forerunners: you" - bitch you've been extinct for like 100,000 years what the fuck are you even talking about???

"the Prometheans, they're human" what the fuck are you even talking about?? Who the fuck are the Prometheans??

Genesong, evolutionary acceleration, thousands of lifetimes' worth of planning? What in the flying fuck is all this nonsense? When and why did Halo become "What If Star Trek Was About Using The Power Of Friendship To Kill God"?!

Look, Microsoft, this shit isn't fucking rocket science. I shouldn't have to take an undergraduate degree in Halology to understand the fucking story of a video game. I shouldn't have to go read god knows how fucking many spin-off novels there are just to know basic facts about your game like who in the flying fuck are all these goddamn Elder God alien species you're name-dropping. I should just play the game and have knowledge of the game from playing the fucking game. Jesus fucking christ pull your head out of your arse and stop jerking yourself off and start making some goddamn sense!!

Why can this Space Orc Big Bad use The Force like Darth Vader anyhow??

Why is defeating Space Orc Big Bad a fucking quicktime event???

Lol get vaporised, idiot

Why was nuking his spaceship another quicktime event? Just make the whole thing a cutscene, christ 🙄

Master Chief finally makes it to The Waifu Dimension (via nuclear bomb?????) and his first thought is "how do I escape from here?" instead of "oh cool I can finally kiss my holographic waifu"

And now he's just, like, chilling out in orbit around earth, perfectly fine and unharmed?? after setting off a nuclear bomb in his lap with his own two hands?????

Hey, so why was I fighting digi-struct robots for the entire back-half of this game anyway? Isn't Halo supposed to be about fighting The Covenant and The Flood?? 😒

Also, didn't the Covenant have an internal schism/civil war last game?? Like, that was the whole plot of the whole game. Why are the Elites back in the Covenant again; are we just not going to bother with explaining that?

Holy fuck I hate this fucking game. Really glad I only paid seven bucks for it.

Things I liked about Halo 4:

It looks pretty

No more dual-wielding. Fun concept, sure, but it made the games' control scheme fucked to shit. Really felt like Bungie made all of the enemies into utterly gratuitous damage-sponges to compensate for MC's higher DPS too, and that sucked.

The weapon rebalancing, in general. The new Needler kicks ass.

No more dragging around a giant posse of allies with me everywhere. I feel like that was another big contributor to the enemies needing to be so heavily-buffed with sponginess.

Really glad the Brutes aren't in this game. Those guys were the fucking worst.

The items from Halo 3 were mostly useless and just served to clutter up the game. Forgot they were there most of the time, and kept activating them by accident when trying to reload. Glad to see they've been fucked off/heavily retooled. The new active-camo gadget is useful and fun without being overpowered; I really like how well they've balanced it. All of the other gadgets are fairly middling though.

The new machine gun is great! (SURE WOULD BE NICE IF I WAS ABLE TO KEEP IT FOR MORE THAN HALF OF ONE LEVEL THOUGH)

I laughed when I saw a grunt sprinting at my Ghost with a lit grenade in each hand. Some real Serious-Sam-type nonsense right there 😂

Stomping around in the Mantis mech was extremely fun

The sticky-bomb handgun was pretty fun.

Final verdict: Microwaved Slop.

I'll eat it if I'm hungry enough, but I won't enjoy it.

#Halo 4 #jodjuyas video game reviews

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dannyphannypack · 4 months

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Happy Holiday Truce @ghozteevee !

I'm so sorry about the wait! I'd say the holidays got away from me, but I think procrastination is pretty true-to-form for me. Something I'll definitely work on in the New Year. I really hope it's still January 3rd for you!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little story <3 I took some inspo from two of your prompts: post identity reveal family outing and sibling bonding. The sibling bonding is in the first quarter or so, the parental bonding is in the last bit. Also, the conclusion definitely ran away from me! Very Brother Bear vibes up in here. I hope that's okay!

Enjoy! :3

Word Count: 3280

Danny gasped awake with a shiver, barely catching the green of his eyes as it caught on the shiny, canvassed ceiling of their tent. His breath fogged in front of him, visible in the quickly dimming glow. It served as a warning of what he already knew had awoken him, but it was nice to get the confirmation anyway: there was a ghost nearby.

He rubbed the crust from his eyes as he allowed his brain time to wake up the rest of the way. The good news was that it didn’t feel like anything overly powerful. The bad news was that if it tripped his Ghost Sense, then it was powerful enough—and more than likely causing havoc, because it was clearly feeling some big emotions and those emotions usually amounted to some brand of anger. It also felt distinctly feral, and given their locale, it was safe to bet it was an animal spirit of some kind. Those could be especially unpredictable, and he wasn’t in the mood.

Danny looked over at the sleeping bag where his sister slept—seeing in the dark hadn’t been a problem for a long time, with or without the aid of glowing eyes—and he watched the slow rise and fall of her chest as she quietly snored. Now, whether or not to wake her was the question. The Ghost Assault Vehicle would be the safest place for her if things went haywire, but undoubtedly she’d be worried and clingy and want to help, which he also wasn’t in the mood for.

Ultimately, though, safety overruled whatever annoying sibling feelings she might stir up. Danny dislodged himself from his own sleeping bag and crawled across the floor to her, the waterproof fabric beneath him making rustling noises all the way.

“Psst,” he whispered, setting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Jazz.”

“Whazzat?” she asked, jerking. “Danny?”

“Hey. There’s a ghost.”

Her eyes blew open. “Like, here? Now?”

Yeah, maybe he could’ve handled that better. “Not yet,” he amended. “But I’m heading out. You should probably get in the Gav, just in case.”

“The G-A-V, Danny, not the ‘Gav.’” It was an old argument, one they hadn’t really argued over in years. Danny figured that Jazz probably found it endearing now that she was out of the house and missing him for most of the year. She sighed as she sat up and reached for the ground, hands fumbling towards her glasses. “You’re going alone? At least tell Mom and Dad first. And help me with a light, please.”

Danny summoned a ball of ectoplasm and sent it floating up towards the domed ceiling, where it lit the whole tent in a dim, soft blue. He grimaced. “I was kind of hoping you’d do that.”

Danny’s parents had been informed of his little secret only a week ago, and all-in-all it had gone down pretty well. The timing had been strategic, of course; Danny was going off to college at the end of the summer, and his parents needed to know why their newest ghostly ally would be disappearing from Amity for the entire school year (barring holidays and emergencies, if all went well). Going to college was a failsafe he knew he hadn’t needed, but wanted anyway—seeing alternate timelines where his parents were accepting of his after-school activities was very different from actually experiencing it in his own, after all. They’d reacted much as expected, though. Surprised. Excited. Sad. Guilt-stricken.

Jazz looked at him with something that bordered on pity, and it made him squirm. “I can if that’s what you really want, Danny,” she allowed. “But you know why I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Okay, no need to get all mopey about it,” Danny deflected, clambering up to his knees (the tent wasn’t tall enough to stand, which kind of put a damper on his whole ‘stoic’ front. Not that he’d admit that). “It just…still feels weird. But I can do it!”

Jazz raised her hands in fake surrender and fought a smile. “Yeah, yeah, you’re a big boy now, I got it.” She unzipped her sleeping bag and cast the cover aside. “I’ll go hide. Though…if it’s big enough that you needed to wake us up, maybe you should do more than just let them know.”

“Like?” Danny asked, just to be obstinate. He knew what Jazz was hinting at.

Jazz rolled her eyes. “Like ask for help, you big dummy.”

Danny sighed. It’d be the first time working with them since…“I don’t know if we’re at that level yet, Jazz.”

“You were before you told them,” Jazz pointed out with a raised brow.

“It’s different,” he stressed.

“Okay, well, different or not, you need to tell them you’re leaving, at the very least.” Jazz crawled over her sleeping bag towards the door and unzipped it with a practiced, fluid motion. “After you,” she said with a dramatic gesture towards the dark campfire and forest beyond.

Danny grumbled as he passed, and once out of the threshold he let the ectoplasmic ball lighting the inside of the tent wink out, just to hear Jazz’s indignant “Hey!” from behind him. Seconds later he heard (and saw) her flashlight click on behind him; ectoplasm-powered and too big for its own good, Danny was sure that thing created its own light pollution. He refused to use it on principle.

Danny walked the short trek to his parents’ tent and crouched to get the zipper, deciding against intangibility just in case one of his parents was awake enough to notice a shadowy silhouette phase through the wall. On the other side, Jack snored with the force of a train engine; Danny could swear it was rattling the zipper out of his hands as he fumbled with it.

The inside was dark, but Jazz’s flashlight outside cast long shadows across the floor. Danny moved out of the way so that the light could hit his parent’s faces; Danny knew his mother would have in ear plugs, so this was really the only safe way of waking her beyond shaking, which Danny knew from experience could be…startling, sometimes.

He watched her brows furrow before her eyes squinted open. She rubbed at her eyes with one hand and took an ear plug out with the other. “Danny? What happened?”

“Um, there’s a ghost,” Danny said (muttered, more like). “I was gonna go—”

“Hold on, I can’t hear you,” Maddie said, turning to shake her husband. “Jack, wake up. Danny needs something.”

“Whazzat?” Jack yelled, in much the same way as Jazz. Like father, like daughter. “What happened?”

“Uh,” Danny said, feeling tenser now with both their attentions on him. “There’s a ghost.” He pointed north. “Half a mile that way, maybe. Getting closer. I was gonna go deal with it, but I told Jazz to get in the RV just in case.”

Maddie frowned. “You were gonna go deal with it? By yourself?”

Danny glanced behind him, where Jazz was giving him a thumbs up from across the campsite. “Um, no,” he lied, turning back around. “You guys can come. If you want. You don’t have to.”

“Of course we want to, Danno!” Jack shouted. He had positively lit up, like grogginess wasn’t and had never been an issue for him. “I’ll go get the Fenton Grappler!”

“Do you know what kind of ghost it is, sweetie?” Maddie asked, still watching him. “What equipment do we need to bring?”

Danny hadn’t thought that far ahead. “It’s an animal, I think. It feels pretty feral. It’s not that strong, either, but—”

“Animal spirits can be unpredictable,” Maddie said, echoing Danny’s earlier considerations. “Alright, we’ll bring the capturing gear.” She paused. “If…that’s okay?”

Danny almost laughed; he’d never heard his mom sound so unsure when it came to ghost hunting. “That sounds good, Mom,” he said. “I’ll go get my boots on.”

— — —

Danny led the way through the timber with his parents, feeling a little silly in human form but unwilling to change nonetheless. It was nice to walk, sometimes, even when flying would be quicker and less taxing. And he could pass his feet intangibly through those pesky fallen branches and thorny bushes, so really it wasn’t all that worse than strolling down an Amity sidewalk. There was, he told himself, no other reason he might want to stay human in this scenario. He certainly wouldn’t feel uncomfortable otherwise.

“Are we getting close, honey?” Maddie asked after helping Jack over a rotted trunk.

The irony wasn’t lost on Danny; he’d asked the same question on the RV ride there. He felt around in his chest, feeling for the speed at which his core buzzed it’s steady warning, the strength of the tug. “Nearly there,” he promised.

“That’s a real neat trick, Danny-boy,” Jack praised. Danny could hear the smile in his voice. “You know, I always wondered how Phantom heard wind of a ghost faster than we did. Didn’t I, Mads?”

Danny kicked at some dead leaves and sticks at the ground, embarrassed. “That ghost alarm you guys developed works similarly. It maybe doesn’t have quite the range, though.”

Maddie hummed, contemplating. “And that’s what woke you up tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Maddie reached out to set her hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He closed his eyes before he turned to face her, bracing. If he hadn’t caught on to the concern in her voice before, he was definitely feeling it now. “How often do ghosts wake you up?” she asked, quiet.

Danny opened his mouth to lie and then thought better of it. That was a habit he was determined to break with his family, whether they’d like the answer or not. “Once or twice a night,” he admitted, slowly. When Maddie made a pained noise, he quickly added, “Usually it’s nothing to worry about, though, so I just go back to sleep. Like, at least half the time.”

She bit her lip. Guilty. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that, hun.”

“Can we not do this?” Danny pleaded. These were the kind of conversations he’d been trying to avoid for the past week. “It’s my fault for not telling you guys, not your fault for not noticing.”

“We know that’s how you feel, Danny,” his mom allowed. She shared a glance with Jack from over her shoulder. “But we can’t help but feel like some of that lies on us, too. For noticing the clues but not acting on them in the ways we should have.”

“We want to know now, though,” Jack said, coming up behind his wife. “Warts and all.”

“Is this an intervention?” Danny asked, nervous. It felt like his core was constricting in his chest. “Because I get enough of that from Jazz.”

“It’s not an intervention,” his mom denied, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s just…Why haven’t you turned into Phantom yet, Danny?”

Danny wasn’t sure if he heard that right. It felt like the conversation had spun 180. “What?” he asked.

“This isn’t exactly an easy hike, sweetie,” she said. “Mostly uphill, through brambles and across fallen trees.”

“It’s been fine,” he argued. “I’ve been phasing through most of it.”

“If we were Tucker or Sam, you would have flown us there,” Maddie finished, and, well, he couldn’t deny that logic. “So why haven’t you?”

Danny frowned. “I didn’t think we were at that stage yet.”

“We’re not on a date, Danny; we’re your parents,” she sighed, shaking her head. “There is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. I changed your diapers; I should know.”

Danny frowned. If she had said that two weeks ago, before they’d known, he might not have believed her. He did believe her this time, but it was marred by something else—this aching, squeezing feeling in his chest, riddling his core with fear and anxiety and confusion and—

Oh. That wasn’t from him.

“Look out!” Danny yelled, grabbing hold of his parents and shoving them to the ground. His shield came up just in time: a glowing black bear, absolutely massive for its species, came barreling down upon it, scratching and growling and baring sharp, sharp teeth with saber-toothed tiger levels of length. He flinched against its strength but held steady, keeping his hands in front of him to feed ectoplasm into the bubble that surrounded them.

Perhaps realizing that its efforts were futile, the bear backed away, roared once in warning, and then took off running in the opposite direction, taking a moment to pause awkwardly at a hollowed tree stump before disappearing over the hill.

“Okay,” Danny breathed, allowing the shield to dissipate. There was that conversation out the window. He was almost grateful for it; he’d always been better at fighting than he was at talking, and staying human during this battle was quickly becoming a moot point, anyhow. “Alright, here’s the plan: you guys follow from back here, and I’ll fly up and cut it off from the front. Sound good?”

He was about to run off then, but Maddie grabbed his chin and twisted him to face her. Her eyes scanned over him faster than Danny could even blink, checking for injuries at a near-inhuman speed.

Once he got over his shock at being grabbed, he started to squirm. “Mom, stop. I’m fine,” he murmured, trying to turn away to hide the way embarrassment was quickly flooding his cheeks with red.

Once satisfied, Maddie nodded and placed a chaste kiss to his forehead. “Be safe,” she commanded in a no-nonsense voice, like he’d be grounded for a week if he came back injured. Then, she finally let him go.

“You too,” he said, turning away. Squeezing his eyes shut, he transformed—focusing on the way his core bloomed outward instead of the stares on his back—and took off into the air.

Going on a bear hunt. He was sure there was a kid’s song about that.

Danny followed the tug in his gut from the sky; it was even stronger now that he’d transformed and they’d gotten…acquainted, for lack of a better word. He couldn’t shake that weird anxious worry in his gut—the one that seemed to be emanating from the bear in waves—but he could fight through it, and that’s what mattered.

Animal spirits were all instinct and emotion, wrapped up into something tight and cohesive that ectoplasm wouldn’t have trouble latching onto. Usually that something was governed by anger, which, as far as Danny knew, was the strongest emotion in a living animal’s arsenal. Human spirits could end up governed by that too, but there was more nuance to the reasoning behind anger with a person: jealousy, revenge, even loneliness could rearrange into different flavors of the same base emotion. It was easier to assuage because of its complicatedness; when there was a direct physical link to someone’s anger, there was something to solve.

It was more difficult to get angry animal spirits to move on. They were angry at everything and nothing all at once. The whole world fueled their anger, and so there was little that could calm them down.

Fear, though…He’d never met an animal spirit governed by fear, or worry, or whatever anxious instinct this bear’s ectoplasm was releasing. Maybe he could turn this into a happy ending, for both him and the bear. He hoped he could, anyway.

Danny dived down in front of it, and from the way it twisted backwards and picked up its pace in the direction opposite of him (the direction towards his parents), it seemed the bear could sense him, too. He went intangible and picked up the pace, letting trees and leaves fly through him at a dizzying pace. Finally, the forest opened into a little clearing, and Danny threw up a green wall at the end of it, where the bear was trying to escape. It skid to a halt so fast it left deep gashes in the dirt, dropped something fuzzy and black from its mouth, and turned to face him.

Danny froze. There, curled beneath the ghost bear’s legs, was a single cub. It peered out from behind her, oblivious to the danger and curious as to the reason for their night’s interruption. More importantly, it did not glow like it’s mother. It was still alive.

Mother Bear growled a warning at the same time Danny’s parents started crashing through the brush nearest her. “Stop!” he shouted out, holding out a hand despite his parents not being able to see him. “Uh, stand down!”

“Danny?” His dad called. “What’s going on?”

Mother Bear was looking increasingly frantic. Panicking a little himself—whether from the emotions that he was accidentally leaching off her or the situation, he wasn’t sure—Danny made a split-second decision and thrust a dome over the top of her and her cub. It would shield them from any sudden bear attacks, true, but it also served as makeshift protection from any Fenton weaponry.

He trusted his parents not to shoot him. He wasn’t sure if he trusted them not to shoot Mother Bear.

“It’s safe now!” Danny called to his parents. “Um, leave your guns outside the clearing! And walk slowly!”

Danny was almost surprised to hear them listening. He didn’t know why. He had to stop doubting them.

“Oh,” Maddie said when she breached the tree line. Mother Bear rotated to face her and Jack as they stepped out, gnashing her too-long teeth and backing further over her cub to put it safely beneath her belly. It peeked out from beneath her paws. “It’s…a mother.”

She sounded shocked. Danny concurred.

“Come over here,” Danny told his parents. “Behind me. I’m gonna try something.”

He stepped forward as his parents came around the dome. Mother Bear watched them walk until they’d settled behind Danny, and already he could feel that fear worry stress easing, just from having all potential predators in-sight instead of surrounding her.

“Danny,” Maddie warned when he took another step forward. “Bears are extremely protective of their young.”

“I know,” Danny murmured, keeping his voice low. He inched forward, getting lower to the ground as he walked. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Mother Bear snarled statically, touching on Ghost Speak but unable to form full coherence. Worry, is what Danny was able to read from it. Worry. Baby. Danger.

Danny switched tactics, changing to Ghost Speak as he set his hands gently against the wall of the dome, emanating as many calming emotions as he could summon. Calm. Safe.

She flinched, but her teeth were shortening, growing less sharp. Baby Bear yawned beneath her, a kind of squeaking hum. Almost like a puppy. Like Cujo, maybe.

Calm. Safe. Danny promised, at the same time voicing sentences in English above the Ghost Speak’s static: “It’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt him. You can let go. I’ll protect him. It’s alright.”

Mother Bear swayed, grew smaller. Promise. She growled. Staticked. No-nonsense voice.

Promise. Danny responded.

Baby Bear nuzzled into Mother Bear, and she licked at his cheek as her body grew brighter and began dissipating, moving on. Baby Bear purred and purred.

She looked at Danny. Looked behind him, where his parents stood. Mother? she asked. With the emotions clogging her speech finally gone, he could actually understand her.

Danny nodded. “Yeah. That’s my Mom.”

Good. Mother Bear hummed, closing her eyes. Safe.

She disappeared, her glowing green fragments scattering on the wind.

Danny turned around to face his parents, and for the first time noticed that they were both crying. That was okay. He was crying, too.

He cleared his throat. “So. Anyway. Where’s the nearest Animal Sanctuary?”

#danny phantom #tayscreams #tay writes #holiday truce 2023 #phanfic #danny phantom fanfic #jazz fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #danny fenton #featuring: animal spirit inspo from shift by captainozone if i'm not mistaken #been a while since i read it but something something animal spirits being unpredictable feeding off instinct and emotion yaddah yaddah #happy holiday truce! i hope it's a good one <3 #this is the first time ive written anything for the phandom in … years #anything ive posted anyway #college has been ;-; taking the creative energies out of me ;-;#ive resorted to turning old dp plot bunnies into creative writing assignments for workshop classes. it’s rough out here #at least it’s working. people just think i have a thing about ghosts. and they’d be right but it’s much deeper than that #holiday truce

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empresskylo · 6 months

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beneath the mask ✩ chapter 11 ⬅ch.10

➠𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈; 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓; 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 ➠SIMON "GHOST" RILEY X AFAB!READER ➠CHAPTER TAGS | sexual assault implications/ptsd. blood. wc 4.1k ➠AUTHOR'S NOTE | this ch gave me butterflies ngl /:

“now, let’s get you outta here.” ghost said softly as he carried you out of the enemy building. his gentle tone made you want to weep—to forget everything that had happened between the two of you, but you knew you couldn’t. you could, however, forget it for the time being.

ghost held you as he loaded you up in one of the trucks. you didn’t pay much attention to the person driving or your surroundings, all you could focus on was the terrible doom that was lingering in your chest when your thoughts went back to that feeling of abandonment. when you felt like they’d never reach you in time and you were left to the hands of the enemy.

ghost sat beside you in the truck, the side of his body against yours. you would have told him that it was okay and he didn’t have to watch over you, but you didn’t have the energy to voice anything. and you had a feeling ghost wouldn’t have obliged anyway.

after being in the vehicle for a few minutes of silence, you finally felt the weight of your situation. your emotions weighed on your chest like a boulder. you sank into your seat and leaned against ghost on instinct, your head resting on his shoulder. he didn’t seem to mind. his gloved hand came out and rested on your knee, reminding you that you were safe and no longer alone. it was a physical reminder that he was there.

ghost insisted on carrying you aboard the plane too. you could have argued, but you didn’t exactly trust your legs.

soap was at your side the second ghost set you down in a seat of the plane. “jesus, thank god you’re okay,” he whispered. soap’s voice was far more erratic than usual. he held your hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “how are ya feeling?” he asked, looking you up and down.

ghost sat across from you and tentatively watched the way you and johnny interacted. “i think i’ll be fine.” you attempted a halfhearted smile, but with the way soap’s face sank, you wondered what you actually looked like.

“iaso,” laswell said making you look up.

“kate, thank god,” you said unsteadily. a temporary feeling of guilt entered your system. you hadn’t even asked about laswell since being rescued.

you appraised her. she looked well. she still looked like herself. she didn’t appear to have any injuries at all. a despicable part of you was envious.

“what did they do to you?” she asked, kneeling in front of you.

“i…” your words faded. you knew you’d have to talk about it. and really, nothing they did was that bad, but your adrenaline was wearing thin and you knew your voice was going to shake if you spoke.

“i think she just needs some time to come back to us,” soap said lightly to laswell. laswell nodded before putting a hand on your shoulder and giving you a warm look. “you did good out there, sergeant.” a small sense of relief filtered in through your thoughts at her praise—even though you didn’t think she meant it.

it didn’t take long for the plane to land back at base, johnny talking to you the entire time, making sure you were truly okay. he didn't ask you to respond to anything he was saying, he simply filled the void with his soothing accent. you even felt your lips form a smile at one point.

when you started to unbuckle and push yourself to stand, ghost’s hands were on you, scooping you back up into his arms. his hand rested on your lower back and the other under your knees.

“you don’t have to carry me,” you said without much conviction.

soap glanced over at the two of you then ducked his head and finished gathering his things before exiting on the ramp. you felt your face warm, wondering what soap was thinking about seeing your lieutenant carry you like this, especially after your pitiful confession to soap.

ghost didn’t reply to you as he walked down the loading dock and brought you in through the entrance closest to the infirmary.

“no, please,” you said in panic, seeing where he was taking you. ghost’s eyes flickered down to look at you for the first time since he picked you up. his attention made your throat close. “can you just take me to my room?”

“you don’t wanna be examined?” his voice was rough as he spoke like he had been shouting. being a medic yourself, of course, you knew you should be examined. even though your injuries weren’t that bad, you could still have internal damage.

you shook your head. “no. i just want to lie down in peace. i don’t want to answer anyone else’s questions. at least not yet.”

ghost hesitated for a moment before he resignedly obliged.

“god,” you groaned. “i hope my roommate isn’t back yet,” you mumbled absentmindedly. ghost could hear the whimper in your words. if she was back, that meant she was sure to hound you with questions and make you go to the infirmary.

“hmm,” you heard ghost hum in reply.

a few moments later, ghost placed you down on your bed— no, wait. this wasn’t your bed. “this isn’t my room,” you said dumbly, looking around.

“i know. it’s mine,” he replied darkly.

you felt your face heat. “w-why would you take me to your room?” you sat awkwardly on his bed as ghost clicked the light on.

“no one will bother you this way,” he said matter-of-factly as if this was simply something he did all the time.

“but–but where will you sleep?”

he shrugged. “doesn’t matter. not tired anyways.” he was still strung up on adrenaline, but he was definitely lying when he said he wasn’t tired. ghost felt beaten down. exhausted. like he would never catch a fucking break.

he rubbed the back of his neck, his mask itching. ghost gave you one last look over before turning to leave the room, to give you your privacy to sleep, or do whatever else you needed to in order to recuperate.

“wait, don’t leave me!” you said quietly but with clear panic laced in your voice. you had leaned over to grab ghost’s hand and you grunted in pain. you sat back on the bed to quickly disguise the anguish that covered your face at the sharp pain in your ribs. “don’t leave me with my own thoughts.” you twisted your hands on your lap, too embarrassed to look at him.

ghost’s eyes traced your silhouette, clearly annoyed with the way you groaned in pain as you reached for him. he wanted desperately to drop you off in the infirmary.

“what kinda thoughts?” he asked, his tone stoic but with a hint of concern.

it felt like that night you had a nightmare and ghost stayed with you even though he probably didn’t want to—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. the memory sent a wave of bashfulness through you.

“oh, uhm.” you looked up as he approached you, standing right before you on the side of his bed. “i guess i’m just blaming myself.”

even though ghost still had his mask on, you could tell he raised an eyebrow. “it’s not your fault you n’ laswell got captured. no one—”

“no. not that. i guess i just… i feel like i don’t belong here.” you looked away from ghost, trying to will the tears to stay put. you were so sick of crying. “you, and soap—and even gaz—spent so long training me, and it’s like it all went out the door the moment i was put in any real danger. i should have been able to escape. to fight them off.” your eyes betrayed you and you quickly wiped the tears away “i should have been able to fight him—”

it was ghost’s turn to cut you off. he sat on the edge of your bed where your feet were, making the mattress dip in. “iaso,” he said, gaining your attention. his fingers itched to reach out and wipe away your tears.

“i like it better when you use my real name,” you said shyly.

when ghost didn’t respond, you looked up. his eyes were pouring into yours; the way he was staring at you made you shift uncomfortably. “what?”

“nothin’,” he finally said. he had been debating telling you he preferred it when you called him simon too, but it got lost in his throat.

“no one thinks less of you for what happened,” he said.

you gave him a skeptical look, expecting him to laugh. “you don’t know that.”

“if any of ‘em do, i’ll be sure t’knock some sense into ‘em.”

you softly laughed, then winced in pain from the movement of your ribs.

“you’re hurt,” he said tersely.

“i’m fine.”

ghost stood from the bed. “i’m gonna go get someone t’take a look. i can ask soap—”

“no, wait. please don’t go.” you felt your body retract in on itself feeling so vulnerable in front of someone you had respected so much. that you still respected so much.

something behind ghost’s eyes sharpened as he looked back at you. he walked over to the side of the bed, inches away from you. “then you gotta let me look.” his words were deep and smokey.

you gave him a hesitant nod. he sat on the bed beside you, making the mattress sink down. his hands came to the hem of his shirt you were wearing and he slowly pulled it up over your head. you whimpered in discomfort as you extended your arms up. your ribs didn’t hurt quite this bad earlier, that’s how you knew the adrenaline was wearing thin.

you were immediately flustered as you sat in your ripped shirt and tank top. reminders of what had happened— what had almost happened —fled back to you.

ghost saw your apprehension and nudged you to take the ripped shirt off. he threw it to the floor and looked back at you. you now sat in only your black tank top, and you were glad for it. the shredded shirt just haunted you, reminding you of the way his knife felt cool against your skin and the ripping noise it made as he dragged it down the front of your shirt.

ghost fingers gently gripped the hem of your tank top and edged it up, bringing you back to reality and out of your dark thoughts. his eyes flickered to yours to make sure you were okay with this. you were glad he had his gloves on—and so was he. if his skin had made contact with yours…

he shook the thoughts away and focused on what he was doing. you squinted in pain as he lifted your top up to your bra and breathed your name. your real name . if it wasn’t for the situation in which he said it, you would have swooned.

ghost’s hands clenched where they gripped your shirt, making fists as he looked at your bruised rib cage. the bruising stretched across your whole abdomen, deep purple and red. “is it bad?” you asked.

ghost took a breath in before lowering your shirt. “i’m gonna go back for that son of a bitch,” he growled.

“what? no! you can’t go back. didn’t you say you killed everyone?”

ghost tried to calm himself by looking away from you, unable to focus as he looked at your cut-up face. “a couple got away. and if the man who did this to you was one of them… i don’t know if i can live with that.”

his eyes danced over to yours before he looked back down at his lap. “simon,” you breathed. you were exhausted. your eyes felt like they were burning the longer you kept them open.

“i need you to wait here a second.” you gave him a worried look. “i’m jus’ gonna go get ya some ice. i’ll be right back.” he wanted to add ‘ i promise ’ at the end of his sentence but thought better of it.

when ghost returned with an ice pack, you had slid under his blankets. he noticed you put his shirt back on and his chest tightened at the sight.

“comfy now, are we?”

“i was going to fight you on staying in your room. had all the talking points ready in my head and everything. but i can’t keep my eyes open,” you said through a yawn. your eyes drooped.

he passed you the ice pack and you gave him a small smile. you bit your lip as you rested it over your ribs. it hurt at first, but the coldness was immediate relief. “thank you.”

you watched silently as ghost shifted on his feet, observing you for a moment, before uniting his boots and kicking them off. next was his tactical vest that he dropped on his desk. the metal of his belt clanked as he undid it. your eyes went wide. “what’re you doing?”

ghost smirked under his mask. “you told me not t’leave. you don’t think i wear all this to bed, now do ya?”

you swallowed and looked away. ghost removed his belt, gloves, and helmet. “care if i…” his words trailed away but his head gestured forward, implying he was asking permission to sit beside you on the bed.

of course, you two had shared a bed before, so how would this be any different? and you were the one making him stay. and it was his bed. you really had no room to say no.

you nodded and ghost clicked off the light, sending you both into darkness. you heard the ruffling of clothes and realized he was taking his mask off. the light from the hallway shone in through the crack of the door and illuminated a sliver of his face as he turned to you. he slid into the bed, above the covers, beside you and you desperately wished he’d turn the light back on.

it was quiet for a few minutes and you were surprised it didn’t feel uncomfortable. “at least i have a reason for my nightmares now,” you joked.

you could hear simon’s head turn on the pillow, his face now looking towards you. he didn’t say anything, but you got a feeling he was telepathically reprimanding you for saying that about yourself.

“aren’t you hurt, too?” you whispered. even though you didn’t have to talk quietly, the darkness of the room made you anyway.

“i’ll worry ‘bout it in the mornin’.”

you wanted to fight him on this but you didn’t have the energy.

it couldn’t have been earlier than six at night and yet you fought to keep your eyes awake. finally, you fell into a restless sleep, simon’s arm warm where it rested against yours.

you awoke hours later and pried your eyes open. the room was still dark—it must have been one or two in the morning—and you could still sense simon beside you, his smell surrounding you: gunsmoke and mint. that’s when you tensed. simon must have shifted in his sleep because now he was on his side, his arm draped across your waist. your cheeks went red hot.

you debated between pretending like you never woke up, letting him keep his arm on you, or asking him to move—you really had to pee. finally, you slowly sat up, his grip on you tightening. “s-simon,” you stuttered. he groaned in his sleep and you felt his hand that was draped across you grip your shirt protectively. your heartbeat kicked up speed. “simon,” you said again.

that last attempt finally woke him from his slumber because he shifted his head to look up at you. he must have realized his arm was wrapped around you, but he made no effort to move it. you swallowed hard. “what is it?” he asked. your breath hitched in your throat at the deep baritone and rasp of his sleepy voice. holy shit , you didn’t think his voice could get any deeper than it already was, but you were wrong.

“i have to use the bathroom,” you said embarrassed. simon breathed in before rolling away from you, taking his arm with him. you felt your heartbeat steady, but you also pouted at the loss of contact.

being a lieutenant had its perks. simon had his own bathroom. it was small and simple, but still, it was a private bathroom. you would have killed for a bathroom of your own.

you slipped off the bed and scurried to the toilet, all too aware of his gaze following you.

once you were finished, you stared at yourself in his dirty mirror. you gently lifted your— his —shirt and looked at your rib cage. even with the faint light in the bathroom, you could tell it was pretty bad.

you startled at a soft knock at the door. obviously, it couldn’t be anyone but simon. you gulped before opening it, trying to step around him, assuming he had to use the bathroom next. but to your surprise, his arm stretched across the doorframe, caging you in.

you looked up at him, your lips parted in shock, and he backed you up against his small sink. his hands were on your hips before you could say anything and he heaved you up and sat you on the counter of the sink.

you watched him in silent astonishment as he pulled out his first aid kit. he began digging through the bag and you saw him crack a very faint smile. “like what ya see?” he teased, his voice still groggy from sleep.

your fists clenched as you looked at him. looked at him . his mask was off. you knew he had taken it off earlier, but you couldn’t really see him in the dark of his room. but now, in the bathroom, regardless of the poor lighting, you could really see his face.

simon pulled out an antiseptic from the bag and looked directly at you. even though you were propped on the sink, he still towered above you. he ignored the way your eyes watched him, widened in shock. his hands softly stroked the side of your face where he began to clean the cut that sliced down your cheek. “shoulda taken care of this earlier,” he mumbled, annoyed with himself for letting you not only skip a visit to the infirmary but to let you go to bed with your face still sticky with dried blood.

you let him clean your face, his eyes obviously avoiding contact with your own. after he was done, he set the bag away. “you should let me look you over,” you said quietly.

he shook his head as he looked at you. and jesus christ, every time he looked at you he took your breath away. he was so handsome. his hair was rather short, but still stuck up in odd places from sleep. he had scruff that covered some of the scars on his jaw. there was a clear scar that slit through his lip, you remember feeling it when he kissed you that night that felt so long ago. his eyes were a dark brown and his lashes were soft and light against the charcoal face paint he still had yet to wash off.

“m’ not hurt,” he said.

you jumped off the sink, making him take a step back, and your hands found his chest. he swallowed and his lips parted ever so slightly at your contact. “no? so this doesn’t hurt?” you asked knowingly as you pressed your hands up his chest. your small boost of confidence came from being a medical professional and wanting to mend simon, knowing he was hurt. and also a bit of sleep deprivation.

you studied his face, unable to look away, and knew he was holding back on wincing. “simon, just let me look,” you said defeated.

he surprised you when he tore his short-sleeved shirt from his top half and let it hang in his hand. his torso was exposed to you in all its glory. you tried not to think about how toned he was as you examined his chest, the small amount of hair trailing down beneath his pants. you could see the way he was breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling in rigorous patterns.

you saw old, faded scars marring his chest. then your eyes found the one lower on his torso, a scar from where you had sown him up weeks ago. then your eyes traced up higher and you saw fresh, bright red blood. there was a clear cut on his side, higher up towards his armpit. it wasn’t deep and had stopped bleeding, but he needed it cleaned.

you grabbed for his med back and pulled out what you needed before ordering him to lift his arm so you could clean his cut. his eyes watched you intensely the entire time you worked. you felt your fingers waver momentarily—the combination of him shirtless, staring at you, and maskless was leaving you starstruck.

you finally set everything back away and looked up at him, a bit awkward about what to do next. simon looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on the way you were swimming in his long-sleeved shirt. he took a step towards you and you mirrored him, backing into the sink. the light in the bathroom flickered. your hands gripped the counter on either side of you as you let simon edge in closer. he hunched over slightly, his head tilted, his eyes locked with yours.

you held your breath as he moved, somewhere between wanting him to continue and wanting him to stop. simon’s hand reached up, desiring nothing more than to cup your face and pull your lips to meet his. but he refrained. he stretched his fingers in phantom pain and settled on tucking a stray hair behind your ear. he watched your throat bob as you gulped and fire blazed behind his eyes.

he wanted to lean into you. to say he was sorry. to have both his hands all over you. to kiss you until you both lost your breath.

you gazed up at him through your eyelashes, waiting for something to happen. “i was right,” he grunted. you raised an eyebrow at him. “it fuckin’ sucks lettin’ people get close, jus’ for them t’leave you.”

you matched his firey gaze. “simon…” you breathed, at a loss of what to say. so he let you in? he listened to you, at least somewhat, when you told him it was worth having people in your life who care about you. how it hurts like hell losing them, but you would gladly take all the pain that comes with loss if it means not being alone.

and then he thought he lost you. and every fear he ever had, every attempt to keep people out so this specific situation wouldn’t happen, came to fruition.

finally, simon stepped back and gave you a sideways look. you wished he wasn’t so beautiful under his mask, maybe then this would have been easier.

you followed him back into his small quarters and obliged when his hand found the small of your back and pushed you towards his bed. he was only slightly worried you might have wanted to leave after this.

you crawled back into your spot and watched as simon sat on top of the covers, his back against the wall, propped up as he got lost in his own thoughts.

“you’re not going back to sleep?” you asked quietly.

he didn’t look down at you as he spoke. “close your eyes,” was all he could muster.

you tried to hold back any sense of rejection as your eyes fluttered closed, desperate for sleep.

after several minutes, you heard simon shift. he looked down at you finally, curled up in his bed, thinking you had fallen back to sleep already. you could feel his gaze on you, burning holes through you. he sighed before sinking down so his head was on his pillow and crossed his hands across his torso. his head turned sideways on the pillow and he couldn’t stop the half-hearted grin as he looked at you beside him.

he hated that he was already on the verge of falling asleep again. this would be the second time he slept in a bed beside you. the first time being in your own bed after you had nightmares. and he hated— absolutely despised —the fact that this was going to also be the second time he slept peacefully and would wake fully rested.

chapter 12 ➡

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sashaisready · 5 months

Text

Chapter 5 - Done

Nick Fowler x Shy CIA Employee Reader

Under the Radar Masterlist

Chapter Four - The Ghost

Warnings: references to sex trafficking

Wordcount: 2333

Despite your best efforts to forget it, Nick’s warning about Joe was niggling away at you. What did he mean exactly? Had something happened between the two of them? Did Nick know something you didn’t? Or was he just basing it all on a hunch he had - or worse - deliberately trying to mess with you to throw you off your game, sabotage you to prove he was right about you?

Would he really do that?

You berated yourself for letting him worm his way back in your headspace. You’d moved on. You’d barely thought about him. You’d been making progress at work. You were on the boss’ radar. You were enjoying Joe’s company. Don’t let him ruin it!

You wouldn’t.

The next day you were back in the makeshift Project Cotton office with Joe reading some correspondence from the FBI team. Walsh suddenly strolled into the conference room, surprising you both.

“Sir” Joe nodded. “Sorry - I thought our meeting wasn’t until this afternoon?”

“Morning both” said Walsh as he ran a finger over the letter opener left on the desk. “No, you’re right Palmer. I’ve actually come to see her” he nodded over to you.

You felt a jolt of anxiety. “Me? Uh…How can I help, Sir?”

“We’ve had an unexpected tip off from an informant in relation to Project Cotton” he explained. “We have reason to believe that this vehicle has been attending several of the key sites”.

He slid a grainy photograph of a sleek truck over to you. You could just about make out the license plate.

“Our informant has managed to get his hands on some CCTV footage which he says catches this truck attending one of the suspected sites on multiple occasions”.

“That could be a big breakthrough” you breathed excitedly. “If we can trace the owner…we might finally have a name for someone at the top of this thing.”

Walsh nodded. “Indeed. The vehicle is registered to a Mr. Ray Colebrook. He has several priors for assault…racketeering…pandering. The problem is we need more evidence in order to obtain a warrant to seize the truck and take Colebrook in for questioning”.

You looked at him pensively. “So you need…proof that he has been spotted at the site? Which could be on the CCTV?”

“Precisely” Walsh nodded. “The difficulty is…the footage is 12 hours long with hundreds of vehicles coming and going. We need someone to review the footage with a fine tooth comb and see if the truck really appears, and how many times if so - with time stamps”.

“So…that would be me” you replied, now understanding what he was asking of you.

“Correct. I know you have a lot of experience in this area. You’re patient, thorough. If the truck is on there you’ll find it. But…we do need it done by the morning, I’m sorry to say. We need to move fast, Colebrook might get spooked now he’s been using the same truck, we need that warrant ASAP before he switches it up again”.

Your eyes widened. “Review 12 hours of footage…By t-tomorrow??”

“Sir…” Joe said, concern lacing his tone.

“I know it’s a big ask. But we’re counting on you” Walsh continued.

Your nerves gave way to determination. This was your chance to prove your value. To show everyone you were capable. To impress Walsh. To help the traffic victims.

Not nothing. Not beige.

You nodded.

“Alright…you can count on me” you told Walsh boldly. “I’ll work through the night it I have to”.

“Great, thank-you…I knew you’d come through” Walsh smiled.

“Sir…this is a big task. Do you think maybe I should step in?” Joe tentatively asked. “I don’t mind pulling an all nighter-”

He looked at you anxiously. Typical Joe, always trying to help. You felt grateful for his support. He was just trying to protect you. But he didn’t need to worry.

“Very valiant - but we need you fresh for tomorrow, Palmer” Walsh responded, his tone making it clear there was no room for further discussion.

He was right. Joe was meant to be out in the morning scoping out one of the sites. The two of you had been planning it for weeks now. He couldn’t go out in the field exhausted from a night of watching CCTV.

“It’s okay Agent Palmer, I’ve got this” you smiled at him reassuringly.

He looked back at you, but he didn’t look wholly convinced.

“You can have tomorrow off in lieu” Walsh added. “So you can rest up afterwards and come back fresh on Thursday where Palmer will debrief you on how his reconnaissance went.”

You nodded. “Got it. Thanks”.

You smiled at Joe again, hoping to show that you were fine to take this on. He smiled back, but you didn’t miss the slight hint of unease on his face.

You had actually done it.

You couldn’t believe it. It had taken hours, you were still stuck at your desk long after everyone else was tucked up in their beds back home, but you’d done it. You blearily stared at the screen in front of you, then at the notepad where you’d scribbled the truck’s time stamps (which you’d treble checked). Done. You’d reviewed all of the footage. The source was right, the truck had visited the site several times during that 12 hour period. Now they’d have the evidence needed to get the warrant for Colebrook.

You were utterly exhausted, but the sheer satisfaction and pride you felt buoyed you. You’d done it! You’d made a meaningful contribution to the project. This work, although tedious, might lead to a major breakthrough in the case - all because of you.

Not so beige after all.

You yawned, your eyelids felt like they had weights attached as you adjusted your back and wriggled your legs to get your blood pumping. You looked around, the clock was approaching 2am. Time to go. It was weird seeing the office like this. Empty. Dark. Quite eerie really.

You fired off an email to Walsh and Joe with the time stamps and camera screenshots of the truck for good measure, smiling to yourself for a job well done.

You got up to leave - then smirked as you noticed the letter opener sitting on the corner of your desk. Might as well take this golden opportunity to continue the game with Joe. You dropped it on his keyboard as you passed by.

You bid good night to Grant the security guard who was shocked to see you so late. He insisted on walking you to your car which was very sweet. You chatted as you walked. Grant was always easy to talk to. You didn’t have to work too hard like you did with the others.

You would text Joe in the morning to see how the mission was going. Until then…sleep. Much sleep.

It was lunchtime by the time you woke up. Seems you really needed that rest. You said a silent thank-you to Walsh for giving you the day off.

Speaking of, he’d emailed you back with a congratulatory message on all your hard work. You took a screen shot of it on your phone so you could refer to it next time you had a crisis of confidence.

You sent a text to Joe wishing him well today and asking him to let you know how it went once he was safe to do so. You felt a pang of anxiety despite your good mood, you hoped all your planning had paid off and he would be safe today.

After that you ordered your favourite takeout for lunch (you deserved it) and jumped in the shower to finally start your day.

After you had stepped out of the shower and the second you’d finished wrapping your towel around you - the doorbell rang. You cursed, not expecting the delivery to be that quick. You glanced down nervously at your scantily clad figure.

Fuck it. The door would only be open a few seconds. Just do it. Delivery drivers must see all kinds…

Emboldened by your new found confidence, you padded to your door and flung the door open.

Your face fell.

“…Nick?”

He was standing in your doorway grinning like the cat who got the cream as he surveyed your figure.

“Afternoon, princess…”

“What are you doing here?” You asked shrilly, hiding your towelled torso behind the front door.

“You don’t look sick to me”.

“What??”

“You didn’t turn up to work so I assumed you were sick. Thought I’d come check on you, but looks like you were just playing hooky”.

You rolled your eyes.

“Actually I’m off today. Walsh let me take the time as I worked late last night. What do you want, Nick?” You barked at him.

“That’s not a very nice way to speak to someone who came out on his break to bring you chicken soup…”

He held up a brown paper bag with the local deli design on it.

Your stomach gurgled, and you flattened any stirrings of feelings that threatened to emerge after realising Nick had brought you soup when he thought you were sick.

“Not hungry. Well…I am. But I have takeout on its way. And I’m not sick. So…” You dismissed it with a wave of the hand.

He smiled, shrugging impassively. “Take it anyway. Heat it up later for dinner.”

He placed the bag on the doorstep. Then he took a step back and his eyes roamed up and down your body. You felt your heart pounding. How had this happened?? You were only meant to be at the door for a few seconds.

“Tryna’ give the delivery driver a heart attack, huh?” He asked, his voice low as his eyes dropped.

You felt yourself blushing as you covered yourself with your arms. “No…I-“

His smile grew wider.

“I’ve missed you, princess”.

You froze, not able to meet his gaze.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Especially when I was out on the op. Your soft skin…your body….but also just…being with you”.

You couldn’t look up.

He sighed. “Look…what I said..”

“Don’t…” you hushed, feeling tears prick the back of your eyes.

“I was outta line” he continued, awkwardly clearing his throat. “I…I don’t know why I said those things. They aren’t true…I was being an asshole and you didn’t deserve any of that”.

You focus your eyes on the soup’s brown paper bag at your feet.

“…you meant it though” you responded. In your head you sounded strong but it left your mouth barely a whisper.

He shook his head. “No….no I didn’t”.

You bit your lip. He did. You remember the venom with which he said it. The mocking half smile. It was emblazoned in your memory, always there no in the background matter how hard you tried to ignore it. He had dug deep into your insecurities and yanked them up to the surface, leaving you raw and exposed.

“You’re a little quiet…sure. But you’re not beige…you’re not nothing” he said gently. “Never beige”.

You didn’t respond.

“You caught me off guard” he explained, clearly not concerned that this was a one sided conversation. “Maybe…maybe there was some truth to what you said. Maybe I was…feelingsomething. And I panicked, I went on the offensive”.

You still couldn’t look. You felt a bead of sweat drip down the back of your neck. You shuffled your feet.

“…and I blew it. And I’m sorry. Really sorry. And I swear - nothing is going on with Mace. We went on a date once but it didn’t work out. That’s all”.

Your heart was pounding. You had longed to hear those word from him for so long. It all felt like a strange dream.

But it was too late. It felt tainted now. You didn’t even know if he was telling the truth.

Your shock transformed into something else. You felt stronger than you had in a long time. Maybe ever.

“You’re right, I’m not beige” you sneered, finally meeting his eye.

He nodded.

“Yes…I’m quiet. Yes…I’ve been stuck in my job for a little too long. And yes…maybe I do blend in more than I stick out…”

He opened his mouth to speak but you continued.

“But I’m also kind. I’m smart. I give everything my all. I may not always know what to say, or how to play the game in the same way you do…but I’m doing my best” you exhaled.

“And now I’m working on this big mission and I’m actually making a difference. Me! An Assistant!! Walsh is happy with my work and he trusts me. For the first time in my career, I’m actually being acknowledged and valued for what I have to offer”.

Nick smiled softly.

“….So, I have to thank-you Nick…”

He frowned, clearly not sure where you were going.

“If you hadn’t been such a colossal asshole then I wouldn’t have pursued this. I wouldn’t have spoken to Walsh and pushed myself to discover what I’m truly capable of. So thank-you, Nick. Thank-you for breaking my heart. Because in your own twisted way, you helped me. But…I’m done with you. I don’t want to speak to you unless I have to. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you turning up at my front door anymore”.

He blanched, his jaw tightening.

“…so take your soup…” you picked up the bag and shoved it into his chest. “And your apologies. And leave me the fuck alone”.

You blew out a puff of air, hardly believing you’d just said what you’d said.

Nick wore his poker face as his eyes found yours. He just stared back at you for a few moments, until he finally nodded and began to retreat.

You watched him walk down the path until he stopped for a second, turning to look at you one last time.

“You were never beige” he said softly. “You’re actually….vibrant. All the colours at once”.

And then he was gone.

Chapter 6 - File

#nick fowler #nick fowler x reader #nick fowler x you #sebastian stan #the 355 #under the radar fic

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